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HARI SREENIVASAN: We turn 
now to part two of the fight 
over a controversial and once

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classified memo.

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Earlier this month, House 
Intelligence chairman 
Devin Nunes released a 
Republican memo about

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the handling of one piece 
of the Russia investigation.

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Over the weekend, Democrats 
served up their own 
version of the document.

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Lisa Desjardins 
takes a closer look.

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LISA DESJARDINS: This memo, 
10 pages long and partially 
redacted, rebuts a key claim

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made by the previous one, that 
federal law enforcement abused 
its powers when it sought

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so-called FISA wiretaps on 
former Trump campaign aide 
Carter Page in late 2016.

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In a weekend tweet, the 
president called this 
latest memo, prepared 
by the top Democrat

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on House intelligence, 
Representative Adam Schiff, a 
total political and legal bust.

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What is exactly?

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Let's talk to Jamil Jaffer.

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He was senior counsel for 
the House Intelligence 
Committee from 2011 to 
2013, also served at

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the Justice Department's 
National Security Division 
during the George W. 
Bush administration.

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Thank you.

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There's much to say and a lot 
of frenzy here, but let's cut 
to sort of the main point.

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The original memo charged that 
the FBI and DOJ put a hand 
on the scale early on in this

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Russia investigation by 
not disclosing that one 
of their key sources had 
political motivation.

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What did this new 
Democratic memo add to that?

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JAMIL JAFFER, Former Senior 
Counsel, House Intelligence 
Committee: Well, I think it's

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pretty clear now that the 
Justice Department did in fact 
disclose to the court that there

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were political motivations 
behind the Steele dossier.

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Right?

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And the only question now is, 
did they use the words Hillary 
Clinton and Democratic campaign?

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The answer to that is no, but 
they didn't do that in part 
because they were redacting

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out the names of U.S. 
persons and U.S. entities.

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And so should they 
have said more?

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Hard to know.

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But I think that is what 
the debate is about now.

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We now know that in fact they 
did tell the court that there 
were political motivations

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behind it.

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LISA DESJARDINS: So, let's 
unpack that a little bit.

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The Steele dossier, many of 
our views may know, because it 
has sort of some scintillating

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information alleged 
against the president.

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Some of that has been debunked.

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And that information 
originally was gathered by a 
conservative funding source.

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Later, Democrats paid for that.

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It ended up in the FBI's hands.

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And you're saying is, this 
memo today tells us that while 
the FBI did disclose there was

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a political motivation, but 
not exactly who it came from?

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JAMIL JAFFER: Exactly.

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And it says -- what 
it says is that people 
who want to discredit 
campaign one, the Trump

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campaign, were gathering this 
information, right, and that 
they had paid the source for

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this information.

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So, you know, from the 
context, it's fairly clear.

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I mean, the court could easily 
assume who was paying for this.

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But they weren't exactly 
transparent about 
that exact point as to 
which campaign it was

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and who was involved.

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The Republican memo suggests 
they should have been.

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The Democratic memo says, well, 
they told the court enough.

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Now the American people now 
have an honest sort of debate 
between the two about who's

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got it right here.

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LISA DESJARDINS: Can you 
help us understand then 
what's normal procedure?

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You have been on both sides, 
the oversight side and the 
filing application side.

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Is it normal to just say there 
was someone who was politically 
motivated, we're not saying

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from which party, involved 
here, or is it more the common 
procedure to say Democrats

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were doing this or 
Republicans were doing this?

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JAMIL JAFFER: Well, it varies, 
when it comes to FISAs.

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Right?

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What you want to do is, you 
want to give the court enough 
information about the context

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and about the information so 
the court can judge, is this 
reliable information on which

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to depend when it's making its 
decision about whether to grant 
the court order and whether

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there's probable cause to 
believe that Carter Page was 
an agent of a foreign power.

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Now, at the same time, 
depending on which side of that 
debate you fall on, you might

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want to give the court 
more or less information.

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The goal is to give the court 
as much information as it 
needs to make its judgment.

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Here, they were clear 
about the political 
motivations behind the memo.

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They were not clear 
specifically about which side.

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And that's partly because they 
take efforts to protect the 
privacy of U.S. persons involved

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and they typically redact out 
U.S. persons' names and put in 
U.S. person one or U.S. entity

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one.

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That's not unusual.

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LISA DESJARDINS: Let's take 
a bigger step back also at 
this overall investigation.

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Does today's memo shed any light 
on what we know about Russian 
meddling and whether there

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were any contacts or any 
collusion between Russians and 
U.S. officials, including the

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Trump campaign or the 
Trump White House?

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Do we learn anything more?

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Is this just a 
tempest in a teapot?

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JAMIL JAFFER: So, I think, in 
a lot of ways, what we know 
now about Carter Page is that

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Carter Page, there were a lot 
of reasons to surveil him, 
right, beyond the dossier.

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LISA DESJARDINS: Just 
a reminder, he was at 
one point, for a few 
months, a foreign policy

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adviser to the Trump campaign.

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JAMIL JAFFER: That's right.

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Of course, this FISA took place 
after he had left the campaign 
already and was disassociated

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with the campaign.

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But there were good reasons 
to surveil Carter Page.

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Now, ultimately, it looks 
like that investigation 
hasn't come to anything.

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But there were good reasons 
at the time to do that.

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That all being said, what 
we did know about the larger 
context is in fact there was a

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Russian effort to 
influence our elections.

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It's actually an effort that 
continues today to influence 
our trust in our system.

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Right?

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And this partisan infighting 
about Carter Page in the memos 
is actually really playing

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into the Russians' 
hands in a lot of ways.

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And it's something that we as 
a country need to think about 
and come together and say,

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look, this is a very real threat 
by a foreign nation state.

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We need to respond to that, 
and respond aggressively.

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LISA DESJARDINS: People 
trying to pay attention 
to this investigation, 
what would you recommend?

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What matters and 
what is distraction?

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JAMIL JAFFER: Yes.

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I think what matters here is, 
if you believe there was a 
problem at the FBI or there were

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issues going on, what's 
the evidence of that?

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And if it's there, let's 
figure out how to fix that.

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But let's not get caught up 
in this back and forth about 
Republicans, Democrats, right,

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this whole thing, this 
fight between Schiff 
and Nunes on one hand.

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And really what you 
need to focus on is, was 
there a problem and was 
there political influence

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here?

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If there was, let's fix it.

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If there wasn't -- but this 
doesn't bespeak a larger problem 
with the FISA process, because,

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ultimately, that process has 
worked pretty well and is very 
effective at combating threats

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to our national security.

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We need to focus on that.

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And there is today a very 
real threat to our national 
security . And that is a Russian

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effort to influence 
our body politic, which 
is a real problem.

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LISA DESJARDINS: Jamil Jaffer, 
you have seen that process 
from the halls of Congress and

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from the Department of Justice.

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Thank you for joining us.

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JAMIL JAFFER: Thanks 
for having me.